


With This Ring, I Thee Pretend To Wed

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Fake Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22076068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: “Dana Katherine Scully,” he says, “will you go undercover with me?"
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	With This Ring, I Thee Pretend To Wed

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: "Arcadia"  
> Disclaimer: No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

She’s working on something else when he comes into the office, one of those trademark surreptitious looks on his face. She understands that Mulder, to other people, is Morse code, his eloquence unintelligible, all dits and dahs. But he comes through to her loud and clear.

“Mulder, what?” she asks, already on the defensive. She can hear the indulgence in her tone. It’s impossible to excise. 

“Hold out your hand,” he says, not looking at her. 

She sets down her pen and cups her palm toward him. She’s learned to only give him one. Mulder will find some way to fill whatever space she offers him in her life. He expands into her universe, warping the weft of her.

“Hmm,” he says. “Close your eyes.”

She squints at him, suspicious. He sighs, his shoulders heaving, his brow innocently smooth. 

“Trust me?” he says. The magic words. Of course she does.

She closes her eyes. She hears him approach, taking careful steps closer. His suit rustles. His hand reaches out for hers, reconsiders, sets that hand carefully back on her papers. His finger hooks under the pinky of her left hand. Then pressure on her ring finger: a band, cool and then warm, jostling over her knuckle to settle at the base of her finger. 

“Open your eyes,” he says, pleased with himself.

She does. Light distills itself in the facets of a diamond. When she tilts her hand, a starburst of light dazzles the ceiling. Her lips part involuntarily. 

“I assume it’s cursed?” she says, to restore her equanimity, but she keeps glancing at the ring. “Or grants wishes? Am I going to turn into a beastwoman at the next full moon?”

“Dana Katherine Scully,” he says, “will you go undercover with me?”

“Ah,” she says. “You stole this from the evidence locker.”

“I had permission this time,” he protests.

“Hmm,” she says, splaying her fingers to examine the ring. It’s white gold, she thinks, studded with little stones, and the big one in the center still glinting like a promise. Gaudy. Gorgeous. If you like that kind of thing. She’s still deciding whether she does. 

“I got you the nicest ring,” he coaxes. 

“It is pretty,” she allows. “What’s the case?”

He grins, smug in his certainty that he’s got her. “Mysterious disappearances in a perfectly respectable gated community. The neighbors swear they know nothing.” 

“Mm, I see,” she says. “Expanding your territory to suburbia.”

“Plenty of monsters in multi-million dollar houses, Scully,” he says solemnly.

“I’ll think about it,” she says.

“Mr. and Mrs. Spooky,” he says in a low tempting voice. 

“Don’t push your luck,” she tells him, but the corner of her mouth quirks up. He backs away, hands up in surrender, a smirk lurking behind his placating expression. She wears the ring all afternoon, distracted by the gleam of it in her peripheral vision, and only takes it off as she’s leaving. She hands it back to him. It glitters in his palm, an artifact of great promise. 

“Well?” he says.

“As long as we’re not Mr. and Mrs. Spooky,” she says. “Maybe the suburbs will be a nice change of pace.” 

“Better mattresses, I’m hoping,” he says. “See you tomorrow, wife of mine.”

She rolls her eyes, but something softens inside her as she turns away.


End file.
